No Flying in Draenor Until 6.1

One of the controversial announcements in Warlords of Draenor is the decision to have Draenor be ground-mount only until Patch 6.1. This means no flying mounts, even if you're level 100, until the first major patch hits.

Bashiok explained the reasoning behind this today, citing the following:Previous expansions did not allow players to fly when leveling up--Warlords of Draenor will work in the same way.Blizzard is happy with how Île du Tonnerre and Île du Temps figé were max level zones with only ground mounts, and thinks level 100 players in Warlords will be similarly successful.Flying trivializes combat--you can just leave combat at will. Imagine what dungeons or battlegrounds would be like if you could fly--the experience would be cheapened.The pacing of outdoor zones is thrown off by flying combat. Zones suddenly appear much smaller since traveling is fast, mountains and other striking scenery is diminished when you can just fly there, and the sense of exploration is toned down.

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There's a lot of discussion about flying\/not-flying and I'd like to try to sum things up and maybe realign the discussion a bit. Some of the other threads are near-cap, some have really gone down tangents, so I'm just picking this one to throw a reply into. Apologies to the other threads.

We intend to disallow flying while leveling from 90 to 100, and have flying become available again in the first major patch for Warlords of Draenor.

No flying while leveling has been the case during Burning Crusade, Wrath of the Lich King, and Mists of Pandaria. We allowed flying during Cataclysm because as those zones were mixed-in with the 1-60 world it just would have been really jarring to dismount you as you fly into Hyjal, etc. but we would have disallowed it for Catalcysm zones as well if there was a reasonable solution there.

Flying trivializes combat. A lot of people like to say we're trying to force world PvP, or that we just really want people to look at the pretty trees we made, but those really aren't the reasons that drive this same decision we've made every expansion. Flying allows you to escape or enter combat at-will. There's a reason why flying isn't allowed in dungeons and raids, or battlegrounds and arenas, and that's because it would trivialize the core mechanic of the game in those areas - combat. For much the same reason it trivializes how content is approached in the outdoor world based on the simple fact that you can lift off and set down wherever you like.

So that's the main reason. But sure there are a lot of other problems it can cause for content design such as zones having to get a lot bigger because flying mounts can travel so quickly (and thus making ground travel in them take much longer), it reduces the impact of elevation within zones, it completely removes the ability for us to pace or present content in any structured way, and in general removes our ability to determine how and when players approach a situation, see a vista or location, or charge into\/out-of a combat situation. It just greatly reduces any gameplay we want to create by allowing infinite choice in how content is approached to best suit a player's intention to (usually) avoid that content.

I totally sympathize with people's desire to do that, they want to be efficient and have it be their choice, but we have to balance our intent to create a game against creating a sandbox where anything goes. There's a happy medium there somewhere, but flying mounts in most cases just do too much to undermine too many of our core intentions with the game world, the basis of the game: combat, or guiding players through a game experience, and for those reasons we have continually chosen (when we could) to disallow flying mounts in the 'current' outdoor content. In the past that's meant only while leveling, but in our experiences with the Isle of Thunder and Timeless Isle we feel like we can extend that for a bit longer in the new content, and have it be kind of a big deal again once you're able to earn flying in the first big content patch, and in the meantime putting focus on flight paths as well as having some more interesting travel options for players to use.

Commentaires

Commentaire de BigH

on 2013-11-13T23:51:21-06:00

That's a lot of pent up anger over a relatively minor decision.\rI blame the Wowhead giveaways. It briefly pulls in the people who normally stick to the official forums (or just don't post) - which is why the average thread here is a few pages long usually, but the contest threads can pass 100 pages in a few days.\r\r--\r\rWhile I wasn't expecting them to push it to the first patch, I fully expected not to be able to fly in WoD while leveling. I agree with a lot of the reasons they gave, it trivializes combat to a degree and makes the world smaller. \r\rMy only problem with it is death and spirit walking. Even limited to only a ground mount, there are places you can reach which you can't reach on foot, or quests which fly\/transport you to high places, or bugs like the one in early MoP which would sometimes dismount you when you crossed zone borders. All of which would force you to take rez sickness because there's no way to reach your body. So as long as they're careful with situations like these (the biggest annoyance was the dismount bug, since that wasn't anything I could control), or smarter with where the put the Graveyards, then I don't have an issue with no flying, and actually look forward to it - there are so many nice ground mounts which never get used because we spend so little time traveling on the ground.

Commentaire de Xenavire

on 2013-11-13T23:57:17-06:00

PvP server due to friends, who refuse to server change. I am stuck there, or I quit WoW. And flying mounts were a nice buffer. Guess my friendship and my playstyle do mingle well, but I didn't have a problem until Blizz decided to shaft anyone who doesn't like being stuck on the ground being ganked.\r\rI mean if they allowed free server transfers everywhere, and free guild transfers, I think I could convince my friends to go to a PvE server. But no, Blizz likes to avoid all quality of life changes that they can leech money off.

Commentaire de Wowopa

on 2013-11-13T23:58:02-06:00

Now if they would just remove flying in the capital cities like Dalaran used to be, that would be sweet.

Commentaire de Nulgar

on 2013-11-14T00:06:58-06:00

Well if we can't fly for a while even at 100, I hope they also re-introduce Cata's "explore the dungeon entrance before you can queue for it". Because what's all this effort to get people out into the world worth if people just level by spamming LFG and BGs?

Commentaire de jimjimjim

on 2013-11-14T00:21:30-06:00

"Flying trivializes combat."\r\rSo does a 5 man group, stealth, and just going around them. :\/\r\rI understand you want us to kill things but you already have mechanisms that works great for encouraging that: Quests, loot, and don't forget the AOE taunt that a mining pick has.\r\rBeing grounded on small islands doesn't suck because... they're small islands. Don't make timeless isle out to be proof that it scales well to continental land masses. This is especially true if you plan do do what you did in MoP and put everything off in remote corners of the land. No one was using their ground mount to trade in gear tokens, justice points, visit pet battle masters, travel between archaeology sites, on, and so on.\r\rHaving a flying mount doesn't prevent you from using your ground mount. If you really prefer your ground mount... no one is stopping you... really, knock yourself out--have fun with Archaeology, bro. Go ground mount from the vale the portal to Isle of Thunder while you're at it.\r\rReally as soon as the linear progression through the questing is done, keeping people grounded is just hassling them for no good reason.\r\rAt any rate, it's not open for debate so it's a pointless discussion.

Commentaire de Knight2006

on 2013-11-14T00:25:02-06:00

Best announcement yet! I love it!

Commentaire de Lordplatypus

on 2013-11-14T00:28:57-06:00

I'm against it for the simple reason that I enjoy jumping of gryphons and seeing if i can hit a landmark.\rIt's one of the few things i do while OQ groups me with a bunch of others to grind conquest.

Commentaire de maik213

on 2013-11-14T00:35:31-06:00

good ol' days where riding was all we had till 40! what 40?xaxaxaxaa lol riding and flight paths!that would actually be sth interesting to consider. like in pandaria, where you had actually work out your flying privilledge!

Commentaire de Draggoth

on 2013-11-14T00:40:25-06:00

I like the idea so far, as I understand it they're going to take many of the exploration ideas from Timeless Isle and add them to the whole world, that's pretty neat. Also they talked about making quest rewards way better and more interesting, like having a change to random epics and such, so keeping players on the ground and exploring the world seems like a good alternative to a bunch of daily quests and reputation grinds.\r\rRight now many players just level through to a few of the zones and they never go back to do all the others zones, missing out on some great storylines, so if they manage to make questing much more compelling even at max level that will be a huge improvement.

Commentaire de ShadowProphet

on 2013-11-14T00:42:22-06:00

Hmm.......I approve!

Commentaire de heldig

on 2013-11-14T01:06:21-06:00

Blizzards way of making jumping puzzles, and on no its to hard to cover it with some monsters that can fly and get you down to the ground.\r\rIn my eyes its pure laziness they cant make us able to fly everywhere and places they dont want us to fly, cover it with some ack ack

Commentaire de amandam

on 2013-11-14T01:11:41-06:00

Look I think we that hate this change are just bad at reading maps and\/or extremely impatient. I am both. I loved Cata leveling so much I leveled 3 characters through there and I am NOT usually a leveler. I have to attribute that to being able to fly. When my main got to Pandaland, I just couldn't take getting lost constantly and having to loop back and kill the same stuff over and over in order to find my way. Getting to the bottom of what seems to be a path up a mountain only to find there's no way up - then to go to Wowhead to see where you're supposed to go and find out it's on the other side of the mountain, ugh ugh ugh! \r\rI ended up getting my husband to chauffeur my main around on his 2 seater to get to 90 and I shelved the alts assuming there would be a tome of Panda flying eventually. I would've PVP'd my way to 90 if I could have but the XP they give for BGs is abysmal and the queues are so long. On top of that I have to be flagged for 5 mins after I leave, so that even rules out doing questing whlie PVP queued at the same time because I'm not interested in getting ganked by people I can't defend myself against.\r\rAlso the impatience issue for me is that I want to go do scheduled raids or BGs with friends at max level right away with my main, and then I want to soak it all in on alts at a much slower pace. Developers: "sloooow doooown", me: "go...go....go....GOOOOO"!

Commentaire de Dyingsoul

on 2013-11-14T01:31:36-06:00

There difference in thoughts throughout community is hilarious; Manaflask's comment section is full of moaning, the Forums (as usual) are full of moaning, and everyone on Wowhead is just like "Yeah, we don't care..."

Commentaire de Rikera

on 2013-11-14T01:42:47-06:00

as well as having some more interesting travel options for players to use.\r\rIt amuses me that everyone was instantly like "YEAH NO FLYING" or "Graaaaah no flying good luck crashing blizz lololololol" and NO ONE noticed that. Don't get me wrong, I love flying as much as the next guy. But not only am I fine with the decision but I am curious and excited to learn what these travel options are.

Commentaire de lanceb

on 2013-11-14T01:46:13-06:00

"WTF? Let me know when 6.1 is out so I can Sub again." Is what I keep hearing from people time after time. Oh god I wish I could have a poll of age verse gate on the subject. I feel like little kids who needs their CoD impulses or something nasty are hating the idea.\r\rI would pay premium for server that just removed any and all Flying mounts that offered more hardcore features. I think this is a great step in the right direction. Blizzard has been carebearing their players way to much and need to keep ties with their long time supporters and the people who made what blizzard is today. Not just every casual kid out on the planet.\r\rgood, i hope alot more with ur attitude cancel their sub for the same reasons cause then atleast MY WoW experiance will be so much better since there are less crybabies like you on the realms, once you resub you still have to lvl to 100 and you still cant fly untill max lvl so its tbh totaly pointless to cancel the sub when WoD hits just to re-sub when 6.1 is out... and as someone mensioned YOU dont speak for everyone, ive also bin playing since the very first beta(im 37 atm) and i actualy LOVE that you couldnt fly untill reaching max lvl, regardless how much i love the flying mounts it does remove alot of the exploring and skipping alot of the content by just flying over it instead of taking ur ground mount straight through it..\r\rto sum it all up, this QQing of yours is actualy all about that you want the game to be even easier than it is today since you dont want any challanges, you are just someone that gotten waaay to spoiled with flying mounts.

Commentaire de mandibleclaw

on 2013-11-14T01:48:19-06:00

Great idea, forces me to discover and appreciate the art put in every zone, not just feel the urge to do something fast and fly the zone away. Im a huge supporter of this decision and this way, our ground only mounts have a reason to be in the game too lol, feels like an eternity since we last used them.

Commentaire de HoroHoro3

on 2013-11-14T01:49:38-06:00

I'm all for this, having to explore the world of draenor on foot\/ground mount instead of a flying mount just makes me want this X-pac even more.

Commentaire de rehlyihmah

on 2013-11-14T01:54:46-06:00

So, no, it will not feel like a big thing, it'll feel like "oh great, I get to use my flying mounts again for a limited amount of time because whatever the next content patch will be it'll be ground mount only anyway."\r\rMeh, if I want to grind mobs - I'll go grind mobs. If for some completely absurd reason I feel the urge to expose myself to PvP, I'll switch to a PvP server. If I want to have a look at the events, I'll have a look at the events. Just design it for ground mounts but leave players who want to avoid it with their chance to do just that.\r\rTimeless Isle is a synonym for "not getting to some rare mob in time because I had to walk around 4 mountains since I was at the wrong place at the right time". Though I hate that place anyway, so I'll just.. not think of it. Though I'm quite sure I'll run into EXACTLY the same situation on Draenor.\r\rAlso, come on, instanced areas are instanced areas, there's a difference between that and the outside world!

Commentaire de BytCG

on 2013-11-14T02:02:44-06:00

No flying until 6.1? No exploring for me until 6.1.\r\rI'll just hang out in Thunder Bluff between queues like I always do.

Commentaire de Saladriel

on 2013-11-14T02:04:06-06:00

I disagree with you, I\u00b4ve been playing for a long time aswell and I can say that not flying is better in most cases, besides what if u can\u00b4t fly for the first 3-4 months of the xpac? you can still get to flex, lfr's and 5man through the que system and use the flight path for normal, even if you are a Pvper you don\u00b4t need to fly to get to your bussiness, I\u00b4m sure that the new PvP isle won\u00b4t allow fliying during the entire expantion. The people that is truly and badly affected by this would be farmers that spend a lot of hours flying around gathering stuff to auction but in the end if the new Garrisons allow your followers to gather resources for you while you are offline it doesn\u00b4t matter they were messed up anyway.